


the life and death of a boy called signless

by Sauky



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe- Crapsack World, Humanstuck, Multi, Psiioniic and Disciple are twins, also psiioniic does lithp but let's just say that's a pain to read and write, and they hate each other in the way twins do? it's a twin thing i guess, brief mentions of clown cults, not identical obviously but i thought i'd clear that up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-18 15:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/562707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sauky/pseuds/Sauky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The first time you told mama you’d been having dreams, you were five and she had smiled sadly and sat you on her knee, brushing curls from your face and wiping sleep from your eyes. She kissed you on the forehead and asked you about them, and you told her about people and places that you shouldn't, but somehow, feel nostalgic for. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>A humanstuck interpretation of The Signless's life.</p><p>More character tags will be added as the story progresses- all the ancestors are in it, but <em>not quite yet.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first time you told mama you’d been having dreams, you were five and she had smiled sadly and sat you on her knee, brushing curls from your face and wiping sleep from your eyes. She kissed you on the forehead and asked you about them, and you told her about people and places that you shouldn’t, but somehow, feel nostalgic for.

You told her about children, maybe three times your age; with helmets and piercings, dresses and four wheeled toys, mohawks and tattoos, goggles, jewellery, scars. You didn’t tell her about the boy in the red jumper, because it was eerie how much he reminded you of yourself, curled hair and small, defensive stature. He seemed obsessive in his quest for social justice, but you think he might have done a better job if he didn’t act better than everyone.

Mama listened and nodded as you scavenged for the right words to describe the images, and you were terrified that you’d miss something or they’d fade in your head before you could try to make sense of them. She didn’t say a word, but she was listening as if it mattered. You stopped, sometimes, mouth open as you filled the pauses with a drawn out ‘um’ or ‘ah’.

It felt like an age had passed since you started talking about it and you found yourself drifting off mid sentence, only to jerk awake suddenly. Mama chuckled softly and lifted you off her knee onto a blanket on the ground. She kneeled next to you and rubbed her knuckles across your cheek, telling you to go back to sleep. She moved until she lay on her back, her face softened by sleep. She had no piercing scars as far as you could tell, no tattoos, her hair was cut short. But she was unmistakably the mothering, hardened woman who irritated your doppelganger so much.

***

For your birthday, the day she found you, she knitted you a red sweater that came past your knees and told you that tomorrow you’d need it; that the two of you were moving to a new, more permanent home. The resemblance to your doppelganger’s was uncanny and bile rose to your throat as you vowed to yourself that you’d treat everyone with respect, not because it’s expected of you, but because they deserve it.

She held her few belonging in her left hand, yours in her right and you walked for what felt like forever, bare feet across a dusty, urban wasteland. You cut your foot on more than one occasion; a sharpened rock, a broken bottle, a ruined wire fence, and mama told you how brave you were for not crying as she rubbed something that stung awful into the wound and bandaged it up with strips of shirt.

When the two of you had arrived at a dimly lit town hall, she knocked on the door as if she wasn’t expected, and you waited in the cold night until you heard muffled footsteps and the grating sound of a rusty deadlock moving from its bed.

The handle turned and the door creaked open a foot, and a backlit face examined you both carefully.

“You guys... You guys looking for residence?”

Mama nodded and the door fully opened to a youth in a sleeveless vest and a red shirt, holding a dripping candle stump and running waxy fingers through red striped hair. He gestured for her to come in, holding his finger to his lips as he looked for signs of disturbance.

You stared at him intently as he walked; everything down to the bones embroidered on his vest matched the stripy hair boy who sometimes appeared in your dreams; sleepily you wondered if others existed as well. He stopped outside a small room and pushed open the door.

He touched the back of his neck awkwardly, gaze shifting from the lone mattress to the wood peeking through cracked plaster to the empty pane of an old window. He coughed as he looked at Mama.

“That’s your room, I guess. I’m sorry about the window, but we’ve got some board you can put in front of it, I think? So, umm, is it just you, or will you be-”

He went to look at his feet, catching your eye instead. His face lit up and he gestured to you as he addressed Mama.

“Oh! I didn’t see... Is he yours?”

“Of course,” she said quietly, energy drained from her voice.

“Ha, that’s a stupid question I guess. That’s really cool, I love kids,” he smiled. “I guess I’ll go grab another mattress?”

Mama just nodded, too tired for words. She sat you down on the mattress, springs creaking from the sudden weight, and laid her cloak over you as a makeshift blanket. You tried to tell her about how he matched with your dreams, but you couldn’t find the words. She closed your eyes and ran her thumb over your cheek, humming a sweet sounding song as she told you to sleep.

“It’s been a long day, dear. Sleep, you’ve earned it.”

You protested again, trying to explain to her. She chuckled.

“Hush, child; stop frowning. Wrinkles don’t suit you”

You huffed, irritated. Sleep is for birds, not absolutely very grown up people like yourself- you’ve just got to...

Just got to...

Stay awake longer than...

...

You fall into the soft embrace of sleep almost instantly.


	2. Chapter 2

When you were ten, you were assigned night shift. Summoner, you don’t think he actually had a name, was ill and Mama was busy taking care of him. You, unwillingly, had sat outside the tall front door for hours, candle in hand.

You were bored to tears, and the temptation to sleep got too much sometimes, so you’d spill wax from the candle onto your palm in an attempt to force yourself awake. You’d peel the tacky layer off your hand and wrap it, still warm, around the base of the candle, smoothing the finger marks as best you could. It never smoothed well, it still clearly showed the imprints of your palm.

You later rested your chin on your hands and dripped wax onto your knees, pushing the candle stump into the still liquid pool; blowing on it until it dried. There. Now you can use your hands for more important things like-

A quick fire series of door knocking broke your concentration; with a crackling sound you pulled the misshapen candle off the faded denim. You leapt towards the door, unbolted the lock, opened it up enough to see through.

The dim candlelight illuminated the outline of two figures, one just taller than you.  You tried to remember how Summoner greeted new arrivals.

“You guys need somewhere to stay?”

It was close enough, you guessed. The taller silhouette looked at his partner, uncertain. She nodded slightly and he responded with a hesitant;

“Yes, if that’s okay.”

You opened the door completely and ushered them in, eying the hall to see if anyone else was awake.

***

Neither of them told you their names-this wasn’t even close to a surprise to you- but you grew to know them as Psiioniic and Disciple for reasons you never really understood. It was later that night when it eventually dawned on you that they also had dream doppelgangers.

Mama was still helping Summoner at this time, and you didn’t feel that getting them into a room at that very moment was all too pressing. You led them to the makeshift living room, torn couches and one, very broken, television. Psiioniic gestured to it, and you waved it down dismissively.

“That’s never worked, ever. Summoner just keeps it because he hopes one day it will.”

“I’m good with electronics. I could try to fix it, if that’s okay?”

He speaks slowly and carefully, trying very hard not to lisp as he talks.

“Sure, I guess. We don’t... we don’t actually have anything for you fix it with, though”

“I only said I’d try. I probably won’t be able to do much.” 

He lifted the aged box of the makeshift table, pried the back open carefully with slender fingers. He’s skinny, unhealthily skinny, and you realize sadly that you’ve never once seen a healthy person and probably never will. He squinted at the frayed wires, and twisted the ones that matched together in a crude attempt at fixing them.

The television sparked at him and crackled and all three of you jumped.

“Shit,” he whispered, pulling his hand away and inspecting it for damage, “maybe I should have unplugged it first.”

His face was so deadpan, and you were so tired that you started to giggle. Disciple joined in, and he looked back up at the two of you with a confused expression. His face eventually cracked into a smile and he placed the television back in its home.

You put the candle stub back in its rusted, archaic holder, and Psiioniic idly flicked through static, he talked quietly with Disciple as you tried to find Summoners room.

“Guess what’s happened,” you whispered at him, once you established that he was awake. Mama motioned at you to not catch his cold, but you gestured for her not to worry.

“What the hell have you done?” he croaked, eyebrows furrowing. “I heard visitors, are they bad or something?”

“One of them’s fixed the television”

“That’s poor grammar, you should say- wait, what?”

You gestured in the direction of the living room before you continued, “I don’t know how he did it, but it’s working. The screen isn’t clear at all, and it keeps shifting into different colours, but it’s making noises!”

Summoner looked a little shocked, and sat silently on his mattress. His face lit up in a wide grin and he laid his head down on his coat.

“Damn, that’s really cool. I hope I’m better tomorrow, so going to be all over that thing.”


	3. Chapter 3

When you were fourteen, Summoner came home minus food and two teeth, with the addition of a bloodied lip and a broken nose.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said wearily, “It’s just a thing that happens, sometimes.”

Mama had a fit and she demanded he explain himself. He looked at his feet and muttered something about ‘fucking purples’ and ‘blood tax’, before limping off to boil some water for a bath. Mama strode briskly after him, plasters in hand. You heard a crack and a yelp, and the sound of more grumbling as she popped some dislocated joint back in place. Psiioniic chucked and winced at the same time.

“Fuck, that sounded like it hurt.”

Disciple slapped the back of his head and sighed. “I bet you’d yell louder if that happened to you.”

“Yeah, probably,” he flicked her ear and looked at you, making himself comfortable on the couch. “Why the confused face, dopey?”

Disciple hits him again and tells him not to be rude. You hesitate, not sure which question to ask. After a long pause, you question;

“Why does Summoner look like someone smashed his head against a wall?”

He laughed humourlessly. “Because that’s probably exactly what the cult did to him”

Disciple nudged him in the ribs. “You’re being deliberately obtuse, dickhead.”

“Why don’t you write it down for him, _dickhead_?”

She tutted and looked back at you. “What do you want to know?”

“Is everything a good answer?”

Psiioniic snorted. “Yeah, if you never want to know anything.”

“Shut up, Psii, damn it,” she hit him hard in the ribs, he grunted and rolled off the couch, “Seriously Signless, just ask something.”

“What’s this cult all about?”

“It’s a batshit insane clown posse that owns all our asses-“

Psiioniic was cut off mid sentence as disciple threw a shoe at him.

“It’s pretty much the only form of law we have, even though-” Psiioniic snicked and she threw the other one at his head. “Even though it’s the pretty terrible sort of law that involves religion and sacrifices.”

Psiioniic whistled and spoke in a higher pitch. “Tell him about the _motherfuckin_ _paradise planet_ best bro, c’mon!”

She flipped him the bird and groaned, reaching for her shoes. “I really... I really do not want to explain their religion bullshit, Psii. Seriously, it’s not going to help him.”

“I’ll do it, easy. So there’s these two mirthful majykk clown spirits that demand that they drink sugary beverages, get high on the holy weed and sacrifice people to paint pictures with. And if you do that you’ll get to live on a majykk clown world where you don’t have to worry about being murdered by psycho clowns and you can get as high and diabetic all you want.”

You and Disciple snort.

“Yeah, it’s real funny, Disciple. Except it’s fucking true.”

“Wait, so-” you pause and look and them both, “Summoner got mugged, and in return they won’t kill him?”

“Not this time, at least.”

Disciple leaned over and thumped him on the shoulder, and you’re pretty sure you heard her knuckles crack. She muttered something about insensitivity as she blew on her sore fingers. “It’s probably best we don’t draw attention to ourselves around them anyway. They’re fucking insane.”

You didn’t answer, other than a half-hearted nod. You had an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for this being a short, glorified exposition.  
> Really.


End file.
